Courage
by Stormyskies89
Summary: Andrea's new to school and she's not sure how to handle it. But when she finds a note from Uncle Charlie in her lunch box, she feels so much better.


**Title:** Courage

**Summary:** Andrea's new to school and she's not sure how to handle it. But when she finds a note from Uncle Charlie in her lunch box, she feels so much better.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Numb3rs, never will.

**A/N:** NO FLAMES! Not accepted.

**2****nd**** A/N:** Came from an idea after watching a Glee episode.

* * *

Andrea Eppes looked up at the school in front of her. She'd been excited before. But now she was nervous, worried. Would she fit in? Would it be like it had been with Uncle Charlie? She was no math genius but she was extremely clever. She was two years more advanced with her science and biology studies than she should be. Her friends went to her when they had a test coming up and she'd help them cram before the test. But she was too smart. She'd go into, what her father deemed, 'lecture mode'.  
He thought she'd be able to keep up like Charlie had and graduate with people who were older than her. Had more life experience than her and she'd end up just like Charlie.  
However, as she strode into her freshman year at the tender age of 12, she was shaking with fear. She wasn't like these kids. She would never be like these kids. Don had no idea what it was going to be like. But Charlie…he knew exactly what it was like to be with people several years your senior. Although Charlie had been in Don's year and Don was 5 years older than Charlie, the kids that Andrea was going to be mixing with were only 3 or 4 years her senior. They would still be mean to her. She knew they would and Uncle Charlie was sure they were going to be.

* * *

"How was your first day?" Don asked as Andrea climbed into the passenger seat of the black SUV. Andrea sighed and rubbed her hand over her face. When she turned to look at her father, he saw the red eyes.

"You been crying, Baby? What is it? What happened?" He asked, she gave a sniff and shook her head she turned to look out the window.

"Ok…we'll talk about it later." Don said, he knew when she didn't want to talk about things. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. But it look like it had been folded and unfolded many times. Not to mention taped up like it had been torn. Don decided not to ask about it, she would talk about when she was ready. Hopefully she'd talk to Charlie, his father or Amita. Maybe then Don would find out about it.

* * *

Don watched as Andrea pushed her food around on her plate later that night. She was really quiet and hadn't said much on her first day at school, she had shut him out and he wasn't sure if she'd spoken to Charlie either.

"Annie?" Andrea looked up at her pet name from her Uncle. Charlie sat across from her.

"Uncle Charlie," she replied, the first two words she'd spoken since getting in the car after school.

"How was your day?" He asked casually. Andrea's gaze dropped to her food again, she pushed a potato around for a moment then sighed.

"Horrible. I'm smarter than most of those kids but the teachers, they're the worst. I'm ignored for the answers it's like I'm not there. I had Algebra 1A today. We had a spot quiz today and after she marked them I got mine back and she put an F on it. I knew all those answers were right. I had checked and double checked them but she told me I was wrong. She failed me. My teachers do not like me." Andrea said angrily.

"Failed you? On a knowledge test?" Don asked.

"Yeah. She told me after class that someone my age shouldn't have known that. I had obviously cheated. She told me that I would no longer sit the tests and she'd have to sit me out of exams if I continued to cheat on tests. I asked her how and she said she couldn't say how but I must have." Andrea said.

"What about your other classes? What were they like?" Charlie asked.

"English, World History and Biology?" Andrea scoffed, "English was ok. I like Romeo and Juliet, the forbidden love story. All girls do. World History already has me in. And Biology? Well let's just say that my teacher there – he's a lot better than my Math teacher." Andrea said, "He says I show real promise and raw talent for biology. But my math teacher – if I told her my Uncle was Professor Charles Eppes from CalSci, she'd tell me I'm a liar and then give me a detention. So I can't even use that as an escape." Andrea said, she pushed her chair back and got up. She didn't come back to the table. Don was sure this is what it looked like when someone hated school.

* * *

Andrea looked around the lunchroom the next day and saw that once more all the tables were full. Nowhere to sit. Andrea sighed and left the room. She sat outside and slowly opened her lunchbox. Pulling out her sandwich and slowly bit into it. She looked down again and noticed a piece of paper that she hadn't packed this morning. Pulling it out she recognized the untidy scrawl that belongs to her Uncle. She opened it and smiled. It was one word but it meant the world to her.

_Courage_

Uncle Charlie knew what it felt like. He knew what she was going through and could relate to what she was feeling. Andrea folded the piece of paper back up and stuffed it in her pocket. Hopefully being that close to her it would help with the idiots who called themselves 'clever' and then tell her she's wrong. Maybe school wasn't gonna be so bad after all.

* * *

"So…how was today?" Don asked as Andrea climbed up into the SUV.

"Better. Not good, but better. This helped." She pulled out a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket and showed Don. He smiled.

"That's Charlie for you. Yesterday you had a piece of paper like that. What was it?" Don asked as he pulled away from curb.

"Uncle Charlie has it. It's my Math test. I had some kids take it from me and they tore it up. I had to stick it back together." Andrea replied; she smiled at her father, "with Uncle Charlie's courage I think School isn't gonna be so bad anymore." She winked at her father and relaxed as he drove towards the familiar house that they both called home.


End file.
